Patch antennas are known in the art. They typically comprise a metal sheet (patch) of specific dimensions with one or more carefully positioned feeds that is suspended over a ground plane. Patch antennas are generally small in size and utilized in higher frequencies (e.g., UHF and above), low profile applications. Such applications may include airborne and terrestrial vehicular applications, where form factor and aerodynamic drag of the antenna is a concern. Common applications of patch antennas in this regard are satellite radio antennas on an automobile or GPS antenna on an aircraft.
Although patch antennas offer the above-mentioned benefits, the bandwidth of existing patch antennas is generally limited by the chosen dimensions of the patch. This makes many existing patch antenna designs inherently narrow band in their operation, and have limited usefulness in certain applications.